The Beau Street Hoard: what’s in the box?

Eleanor Ghey, project curator, British Museum

Hoards of Roman coins from later in the third century AD are the most common sort of coin hoards we see at the British Museum but the Beau Street Hoard is very unusual. When I saw the X-ray of the hoard I was very excited to see what looked like clearly separate bags of coins deposited in a group – normally coins are found in a pot or in a hole in the ground together in one lump. Here we have at least six (and probably more) groups of coins – several hoards in one! It was even more exciting to learn that it was going to be possible for my colleague Julia Tubman to isolate the groups.

It raises all sorts of questions. Do the bags contain the same sorts of coins or different ones? Do they each contain the same amount in Roman money or in weight of metal? Are they all coins that were circulating at the same date or are they deposits of coins from different time-periods gathered together at a later date for re-burial?

It is already possible to start to speculate about the contents of the hoard from the few coins that have been removed from the block (although it may still hold surprises). The coins are mostly of the denomination known as a ‘radiate’ (from the spiky crown the emperor wears on the obverse (front) of the coin).

A silver radiate of Gordian III from the hoard

This type of coin first appears in the early third century AD and at the time was of a value double that of the denarius (the main silver coin in the earlier years of the Roman Empire). Initially, like the denarius this was a silver coin. Gradually over time the silver content of the radiate was reduced, until (by the 270s AD) they were almost entirely base metal (copper alloy) and became smaller in size.

The first coins Julia removed from the block were large and silvery in appearance (once cleaned) and came mostly from the first half of the third century AD. The earliest coin was a denarius of the emperor Septimius Severus (ruled AD 193-211) and the latest were coins of the emperor Gallienus and his wife, Salonina, dated to the AD 260s. This would be fairly typical for the contents of a hoard buried in the AD 260s.

A silver denarius of Septimius Severus (AD 193-211) from the British Museum collection

However, when the hoard was first discovered, a sample of coins taken from another area of the block was quite different in nature. These were the smaller, more coppery radiates of the AD 270s (the most common type of coins we find in hoards from the 270s to 290s). This suggests that we may be dealing with bags containing different groups of coins, possibly gathered together at different times or sorted before burial.

Was this a secure store for bags of money that was added to gradually by one or more people over a fairly long period of time? It seems like an official store of money, organised into bags and purposely concealed in a place designed for that purpose. It was certainly a large amount of money (although we don’t have data for the later third century, pay scales for legionary soldiers in the AD 230s suggest they would have received about two and a half of these coins as a day’s wage) and it could have been looked after by an individual with authority.

It is rare to find hoards in Roman town centres. Perhaps it belonged to a local business in what was a busy town centre (deposited in a safe place in the way we leave money at the bank today). Why was it left for the archaeologists to find and not recovered by its owner?

Was there any connection with the nearby temple and sacred spring? We know that temples had treasuries; they may have periodically emptied out some of the coins thrown into the spring.

We are hoping that results from the archaeological excavation of the findspot will shed further light on this puzzle.

Very interesting !! I look forward to following new instalments as work progresses. It might be interesting to look at whether there is a difference in blank production methods for coins within same or different bags. I did some experiments with this a while back and would be happy too share thoughts on this.